Interview: Simple Eco-Friendly Tips for Earth Day with Expert Chris Leary of the Daily Lounge

Happy Earth Day! Eco/Tech expert Chris Leary of the Daily Lounge joined me on Friday to discuss simple ways we can all go green to help the environment and save us money in the long run! From getting better gas mileage to saving on our electric bills to much more, Chris has you covered.

Go Green for Earth Day with Eco/Tech Expert Chris Leary of the Daily Lounge

Candace Rose: What are some simple steps we can take to be eco-friendly for Earth Day?

Chris Leary: "That's a good question. Actually, Earth Day is a great time to educate and make everyone aware. I'm actually at Earth Day in New York, which is at Grand Central Terminal. And they have lots of great live music and children's exhibits- you might as well start them early, right? And they also have exhibits from companies that just tell you that being energy wise and conservative in things like that and Earth Day friendly is as easy as turning on a light.

Now of course most people when they think about Toshiba they think about laptops and television, but for over 120 years they've been providing some great variety of lighting products as well. So these LED bulbs right here are up to 85% more energy efficient than conventional lights. And they last up to 25 times longer. They're designed to look like traditional bulbs, and the A19 bulb goes into the lamps and of course the BR30's going into recess lighting. And they give off a nice warm smooth glow. They're mercury and lead-free which is very important when talking about the environment. Use lights everyday. Use cars everyday. I hope you don't mind the noise- like I said we're in Grand Central Terminal and it gets pretty busy here; and I love it. A lot of activity, a lot of attention going to Earth Day.

LED light bulbs

Now I was talking about cars and tires and things like that, and you think 'well, if I want to boost my fuel efficiency I've got to buy a new car'. Well, that's not really the case- you buy a new set of tires or change your tires into these. These are Bridgestone's tires, they're the Ecopia tires and they use less energy to go farther. They save you about two gallons of gas a month, and that equates to about $450 over the life of the tires. And speaking of tires by the way, if everyone in the United States properly inflated their tires using one of these guys here (it's a pressure gauge) we could save 1.2 billion gallons of gas per year. Okay, and that equates to 12 million tons of carbon dioxide in our air. So I would love for you just to do- it's a simple thing to do, just check your pressure in your tires and of course it says right on the tire sidewall- it says how much pressure you need. So, a little thing to do to kick in.

Bridgestone Ecopia Tires

Checking the pressure in your tires with a pressure gauge can also save you money!

And another thing we use all the time of course is our phones. And if you're looking for a 4G phone that is earth friendly, we've got one right here. This is the LG Viper 4G LTE, it's exclusively from Sprint. It's ULE Platinum certified. What's that mean? I'll tell ya- it's the highest level of environmental performance. Okay the case is made of 50% recycled plastics. The packaging is completely recyclable and if you leave the charger plugged in without the phone it only draws about 0.03 of a watt which is just absolutely amazing. So every little bit helps. You can get it for $99 from Sprint and they give you the unlimited data plan as well. So that's nice.

The Sprint LG Viper 4G LTE is ULE Platinum certified.

I really like soda and sparkling water but what I don't like is the 360 billion bottles and cans that are polluting all of our streams, rivers and parks and oceans every year. Now these sodastream machines turn water into soda and sparkling water, and it does it in just seconds. You could save the average American about 2,000 bottles and cans every year and that's significant. Another thing that's significant which I love is you don't need to lug those bottles and cans back and forth to the recycling bin on trash day, which I'm getting tired of doing. That's why I have one of those, okay. And by the way they're BPA-free carbonated bottles are reusable for like three to five years, so that's kind of nice. Everything is about recycling, education, awareness- that's what Earth Day is pretty much all about."

The Sodastream Soda Machine

Candace Rose: Absolutely. Do you have any additional tips or information you'd like to share?

Chris Leary: "Oh yeah. As a matter of fact we've got a ton of it. You can go to DailyLounge.com and we'll give you more information on Earth Day and lots of stuff there.